RAK RAK7204 User manual

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RAK7204 Quick Start Guide
Prerequisites
What do you need?
Before going through each and every step in the installation guide of the RAK7204 WisNode Sense Home, make
sure to prepare the necessary items listed below:
1. RAK7204 WisNode Sense Home
2. Micro USB Cable
3. Gateway in Range, for Testing
4. Windows PC
📝 NOTE:
This device released by RAKwireless is already pre-loaded with its latest firmware upon manufacturing. If
you want to have your device's firmware and bootloader burned, please refer to the sections below:
1. Burning the Bootloader
2. Burning the Firmware
What's Included in the Package?
1pc - RAK7204 WisNode Sense Home
1pc - LoRa Antenna
1pc - 3500mAh Lithium Battery
Product Configuration
Interfacing with the RAK7204 WisNode Sense Home
In order for you to be able to interface with the RAK7204 WisNode Sense Home with your Windows Machine, you
need to download the RAK Serial Port Tool here .
⚠ WARNING
The included battery is non rechargeable. Please do note that when configuring the device, you have to
connect the battery first in order for it to work.
Connect your RAK7204 WisNode Sense Home in your Windows Machine using the provided micro-usb cable.

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LoRa ®Module
P/N: RAK811-470Mhz LOT Number: 201844
Figure 1: RAK7204 WisNode Sense Home to Laptop Connection
⚠ WARNING
The pin distance of the battery connector is 2.0mm. Reverse connection or short circuit may damage the
device and may cause overheating and combustion of the battery. Therefore, when replacing the battery, it
is necessary to strictly confirm whether the positive and negative poles of the connector are correct.
Open the RAK Serial Port Tool :
Figure 2: RAK Serial Port Tool
In choosing the correct COM Port number for your device. Go to your Device Manager by pressing : Windows +
R and type devmgmt.msc or search in the Start Menu

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Figure 3: Device Manager
Look for Ports (COM & LPT) and Find the name Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge and take note of the
COM Port Number.
📝 NOTE:
If you didn't find any Port with the name Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge, make sure you have
downloaded the CP210x USB Drivers in your Machine.
Choose the Correct Port Number from the device manager and the Correct Baudrate then click Open:
Figure 4: Correct Port Number and Correct Baud rate

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Figure 5: Connection Success
Connecting to Helium (The People's Network)
Helium has quickly become the most widespread LPWAN communal network with more than 27,000 devices
deployed globally. All our node products are compatible with it and the process of adding a device to the network is
intuitive and straightforward.
This section will focus on giving a brief guide on how to connect the RAK7204 to the network console, assuming
that there is a Helium Hotspot within range.
Log in or create your account here :

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Figure 6: Helium console
Once registered/logged in, you will end up at the home page where you can see your function tree on the left and
your DC balance at the tops as well as a number of useful links.
Figure 7: Helium console home screen
Go to the Devices section in the function tree. If this is your first time doing this there will be no devices registered.
Click the + Add Device button to get started.

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Figure 8: Helium devices
A window will pop up with a set of field containing the device parameters required for its registration.
Figure 9: Add a new device
Fill in a name of your choosing. The Dev EUI, App EUI, and App Key will have random values generated for you
by default. Press the eye icon to reveal the values. You can manually replace them with values of your own. For
this tutorial, use the default values. Press the Submit button, and you are done.
Figure 10: Helium devices
Now your RAK7204 is registered and is awaiting activation. For this to happen, you need to import the Dev EUI,
App EUI and App Key in the RAK7204 using the RAK Serial Port Tool .
Open the tool, select the desired port (default baud rate) and open it. Then start importing your settings.

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Configure your LoRa band and activation mode. This tutorial will be using the EU868 band and OTAA (only option
available for now with Helium) with device class A (default one, does not need configuring).
Regional band and activation mode setting
Enter the Dev UI
Use the command below by replacing the XXXX with your Device EUI from the Helium console:
Enter the App EUI
Same as with the Device EUI, replace the XXXX with your value:
Enter App Key
Finally, fill in the App key with the command:
Join Network
Finish executing the join command in order for the node to initiate the join procedure.
Once the procedure is initiated and successfully complete you will have a notification in the serial console
You output should resemble the one in Figure 11:
at+set_config=lora:join_mode:0
at+set_config=lora:region:EU868
at+set_config=lora:dev_eui:XXXX
at+set_config=lora:app_eui:XXXX
at++set_config=lora:app_key:XXXX
at+join

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Figure 11: RAK7204 EUIs and key
If you take a look at the Helium console, you will also see the join request packets both in the graph and event log.
Your node is now a part of the Helium Network.
Figure 12: Helium console live device data
Configuring the Built-in Server
The procedure for connecting the RAK7204 to the Built-in Server is straightforward and includes going through the
following steps:
1. Open a browser and access the Web UI of your WisGate Edge Gateway by entering its IP address in the
browser address bar. You will be greeted by the Log in screen. The default user name/password are both
"root".

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Figure 13: Built-in Server Log in screen
Once you have logged in make sure you are in Network Server mode. By default the gateway is working in this
mode, so if this is the first time you are configuring it it should already be set. If this is nit the case go to the
Network Server menu, the Network Settings sub menu and select the Network Server option in the Mode drop-
down menu:

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Figure 14: Network Server mode
2. Start the Device registration process by going to the Application sub menu in the LoRa Network section and
creating an application. Enter a name in the field, leave the default type and press "Save & Apply"
Figure 15: Creating your application

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In the following screen you will see fields for the application parameters.
In the Application Configuration sub-window enable the "Auto Add LoRa Device" functionality. Generate a random
Application EUI and Application Key via the green arrow button next to the text fields. Note these down as you will
need them for the RAK7204 configuration.
Figure 16: Application configuration
Move to the Payload Formats sub-window and set the payload format to "CayenneLPP" via the drop down menu.
This is the format that the RAK7204 uses, thus enabling this functionality will allow you to see the parsed data in
the Application Server. Finally enable the "Only forward the parsed data object" functionality, press the "Save &
Apply" button to finalize the configuration changes.
Figure 17: Payload Format
3. Now that your application has been created you need to go to the device section by pressing the "Edit " button.

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Figure 18: Editing an application
Now you are in the "Devices" section and you can add a device by entering its Device EUI, which you can find on
a sticker on the back of the RAK7204. Press the "Add" button to proceed.
Figure 19: Adding a device
In the configuration screen enter a name for your device and leave the rest of the parameters with their default
values (the Description is optional). Finish by pressing the "Save & Apply" button.

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Figure 20: Device parameters
Your Device is now added to the Built-in server and you should see it in the "Devices" section.
Figure 21: Devices section
Next you need to import the same configuration in the RAK7204.
Configuring the RAK7204
Start by connecting to your RAK7204 as described in the Product Configuration section of the Quick Start Guide.
Open a terminal and check your firmware version using the command:
at+version

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Figure 22: Firmware version
If there is a newer firmware version at the link , update using this procedure.
Follow the steps in order to update the RAK7204 configuration and connect it to the Built-in Server
1. Import the Device EUI (from the label on the back), Application EUI and Application Key (you should have
noted them down as instructed in the previous section), by executing the following commands in order (replace
the "xxxx" with your values).
Device EUI
Application EUI
Application Key
at+set_config=lora:dev_eui:xxxx
at+set_config=lora:app_eui:xxxx
at+set_config=lora:app_key:xxxx

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Figure 23: Importing EUIs and Key
2. Set the activation parameters (LoRa Region, Device Class, Activation Mode). This example will use the
EU868 regional band, class A, OTAA activation mode.
LoRa Region
Device Class
Activation Mode
After executing the last command the node will automatically start the join procedure. If for some reason this is not
the case, you can always use the command below to start the activation process:
at+set_config=lora:region:EU868
at+set_config=lora:class:0
at+set_config=lora:join_mode:0
at+join

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Figure 24: Activation parameters
Upon successful registration the following response will be shown in the Serial Tool.
Figure 25: Successful Device Join
If you check the Devices Section and the Live Device Data in the Devices section you should see the device being
online for some time and also some packets, in this case the Join request and an uplink packet where the data is
visible in a human readable format (as we chose the Cayenne payload format)

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Figure 26: Device up-time
Figure 27: Device real time packets
Your RAK7204 is now connected to the Built-in server and transmitting data over regular intervals.
Connecting to The Things Network V3 (TTNv3)
At The Things Conference 2021, it was announced that The Things Network is upgrading to The Things Stack v3.
In this section, it will be shown how to connect RAK7204 WisNode Sense Home to The Things Stack.
First, log in to the TTNv3. To do so, head to the TTNv3 site . If you already have a TTN account, you can use
your The Things ID credentials to log in.

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Figure 28: The Things Stack Home Page
Figure 29: Console Page after successful login
📝 NOTE:
To connect RAK7204 WisNode Sense Home to TTNv3, you should already have connected a gateway
in range to TTNv2 or TTNv3, or you have to be sure that you are in the range of a public gateway.
This tutorial is for EU868 Frequency band.
Adding an Application

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1. If you do not have created applications yet, to create an application, choose Create an application. If you have
created applications before, navigate through Go to applications > + Add application.
Figure 30: Create an application page
2. Fill in the needed information:
Owner - Automatically filled by The Things Stack, based on your account or created organization.
Application ID - This will be the unique ID of your application in the Network. ID must contain only lowercase
letters, numbers, and dashes (-).
Application name (optional) - This is the name of your application.
Description (optional) – Description of your application. Optional application description; can also be used to
save notes about the application.
Figure 31: Application Overview
OTAA Mode
Register the Device

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1. From the Application Overview page, click on + Add end device.
Figure 32: Adding a device in OTAA mode
2. Below the Register end device heading, you can find two options for registering a device. Choose Manually.
For Activation mode, choose Over the air activation (OTAA)
For the LoRaWAN version, choose MAC V1.0.2 (RAK7204 is LoRaWAN 1.0.2 fully compliant).
Figure 33: Registering the device in OTAA mode
3. To get to the next step of the registration, click Start.